


Occupation, Unlisted

by neonntiger



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Action, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BDSM, Basically what you'd expect for the time period, Cannibalism, Drama, Drugs, Gore, Graphic descriptions, Historical AU, History, Homophobia, M/M, Manipulation, Nazi Hunting AU, Nazi hunting, Racial Tension, Sexism, Violence, politically incorrect
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-27
Updated: 2015-06-27
Packaged: 2018-04-06 09:25:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4216350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neonntiger/pseuds/neonntiger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hannibal Lecter is a notable doctor.  Will Graham is an unwilling FBI agent. Beneath the surface, both men have a night job that is far darker than anything the day could ever bring.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Occupation, Unlisted

_-German Occupied Lithuania, Winter, 1942-_

“Hannibal...it’s so...hot…” Mischa whimpered as she fought to push her blankets off.

Hannibal swaddled her tighter, mindful of her frail limbs, and hushed her gently. “Now, now,” he said quietly. “You only think yourself hot because of the fever, that’s all. We need to keep you warm.”

“Food? So hungry…”

Hannibal’s lips pursed thoughtfully. “There might be salted goat’s meat left.”

Too exhausted from her fever, Mischa offered little response. Speech had become a struggle against her illness recently and she spoke very little. 

The Lecter family had been forced out of their estate soon after the Germans claimed Lithuania as their own. Hannibal was too young to understand what that meant beyond having to leave home. His father took him from his bed one night and instructed him to pack a bag of his warmest clothes, to take only one stuffed animal, and to meet his mother and Mischa in the den. Hannibal, obedient as always, did what was instructed of him and stuffed a leather rucksack full of woollen sweaters and pants. He clutched a small teddy bear under his arm and padded out of his room and down the stairs to the den.

His mother stood tall and resolute with little Mischa cradled to her body in a sling. Tall men in black uniforms stood at the periphery of the room, their eyes narrow and focused and surveying the room like hawks. Hannibal thought they looked like the long shadows the summer sun casted across the ground in the summer. 

The men spoke in a language Hannibal could not comprehend. His father lifted him easily, rucksack and all, and held him with one arm under him. Hannibal watched as the black clad men pointed as one long arm towards the door. They left silently. Young Hannibal opened his mouth to ask why they weren’t driving as they walked past their family car but thought better of the question and remained quiet, his teddy bear sandwiched between his body and his father’s shoulder. They were on foot now, their own strength was all they had to carry them away.

That happened a year ago. At least, Hannibal thought it happened a year ago.

The cabin they had moved into was a shell of a home, a far cry from their luxurious estate where they wanted for nothing. In the cabin, they had only the barest essentials; blankets, cots to sleep in, a small wood burning oven, and a fireplace just big enough to throw heat to warm the area around it. 

Hannibal’s father ventured frequently into town for food and water and most importantly, for medicine for little Mischa, who was growing increasingly ill. He returned with food and water but never with medicine. Hannibal overheard his father lament to his mother that the pharmacies were hoarding medication only for German use. Hearing this instilled a hate in him for Germans despite not fully grasping what a German actually was. 

“Father,” Hannibal rushed over to him upon his return from one of his many hunts. “Are the Germans the men in black clothes that took our home?”

His father, a man of few words, only grunted in response.

Hannibal’s hate crystallized. He returned to his sister, swaddled and resting in a cot, and held her tiny hands in his own. 

Everything else passed in a blur. Winter dragged out in an endless series of white days and thick black nights punctuated by scarce meals and constant tending to the fire, which burned on and on and on.

Hannibal’s mother and father divided their focus between feeding their family and tending to Mischa, who was the most restless of the family constantly crying and uncomfortable with her sickness.

One night, while Hannibal slept beside his sister, he roused to the sound of her ragged breaths. He noticed they were shallower than usual and panicked. He sat up and looked down at her and noticed the blue tinge to her skin, the purpleness where she should’ve been pink with life. Hannibal hopped from his cot to run over to his mother.

“Mother! Mother!” He shook her harshly. “Mother, please wake up!”

The matriarch of the cabin roused and tended to Mischa but there was little to be done for her. She remained in her frozen sleep, her tiny body curled under her blanket. 

Two moons later, Mischa was buried in the yard, Hannibal’s father slaving to dig a grave in the frozen earth with Hannibal stood at his mother’s side. She cradled Mischa to her body, still rocking her daughter as if trying to gently rouse her from a nap. She was placed down in the grave slowly, like a crystal doll being placed on a shelf. Hannibal watched, his body rigid with emotion. Hannibal’s father shovelled the snowy dirt onto her slowly, his cheeks red and tear streaked. 

Hannibal drew his knees to his chest and watched as the grave filled. His father patted the dirt mound down with the shovel to harden it. His mother sobbed helplessly and hugged her arms around herself. Hannibal remained silent and closed his eyes as he felt his mind swimming behind his eyes. He felt grief tinged with anger. That grief took shape. It grew fangs and claws and snarled against the interior of his skull searching for a crack to escape from.

Months passed.

Maybe years.

He wasn’t sure.

Early one spring morning, Hannibal’s father sent him hunting. He could see how frail his mother and father were becoming as a result of skipping their own meals to provide for Hannibal. What heroic tales might call the ultimate parental sacrifice. Even when they slept together at night, the three of them nestled together with young Hannibal asleep between them, they made sure their child was warm and comfortable before concerning themselves with whether or not they’d have blankets for their own cold bodies. Where his parents were weakening, Hannibal thrived.

Hannibal had been gone for hours. He took his time hunting, calling upon every skill his father passed down to him. What he had that his father didn’t was the nose of a bloodhound. He learned that about himself the first time he hunted with his father when he picked up the scent trail of an animal before his father spotted it.

Returning to the cabin later in the day, the coppery smell of blood assaulted his nostrils before he took in the sight of the carnage. He dropped his kills by his feet and approached the mess that had been his temporary home, his mother and father’s bodies buried in broken and splintered wood. He sighed in the sight and turned to find the shovel that his father had used two years prior to begin the task his father had so dutifully carried out when Mischa died. 

The task took the better part of the rest of the day and by sunset, he was smoothing the two dirt mounds he’d created as graves for his parents. He stared at the disturbed earth reverently and said a silent prayer to himself, a gesture of courtesy and respect. He wiped his grubby eyes with his hands and turned to leave. 

Hannibal had just turned 11 years of age without being aware of his birthday. Where a boy his age should have been adjusting to the idea of leaving behind toys and trinkets of young childhood behind, Hannibal was leaving behind his family. His second home. He was taking on a new life of movement and survival. He was beginning a new chapter.

_-America, 1961. Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Department-_

At twenty five years old, Will Graham was one of the youngest agents currently employed by the FBI, much to his own chagrin. He came into the job by a stroke of luck, a random chance so perfectly aligned that he would’ve been a fool to dismiss it. He had been cornered by Jack Crawford one evening after a particularly gruesome homicide. Will had wandered onto the scene in a lapse of consciousness and Jack barked at him to leave. At the mercy of his malfunctioning brain in the centre of the action, Will remained and Jack realized what he was capable of. 

Impressed, Crawford recruited Will to the behavioral science department a week later. 

Jack Crawford commanded respect at every turn, a task that sometimes proved difficult as an African American man. But it became increasingly clear to Will that Jack had fought for the right to be considered for the position and had earned it on pure merit. He battled tooth and nail and won. Very few opposed the man at the top now. 

Sitting at his desk dividing his attention between his internal thoughts and his external world, Graham peered over the rims of his glasses to look up at the clock. He didn’t have much longer in his shift. He flexed his fingers and imagined how nice it would be to be holding a glass of whiskey in one hand and a freshly lit cigarette in the other. 

“Honestly, Graham,” a voice broke Will’s private reverie. The voice belonged to a man in the department whose name Will couldn’t be bothered to recall. “You should get out more.”

“Huh?” Will looked away from the clock but kept the time in his periphery.

“You should get out more,” he repeated.

“I get out enough,” Will replied. 

The two scientists snickered behind their folders. Will acknowledged them with a sigh before getting up to clear his desk for the night. He tucked papers away into dossiers and manilla envelopes and locked them away in their proper drawer. Other papers went directly into his bag so he could continue reviewing them at home later. He hung his bag over his shoulder and walked out of the office without saying goodbye. Will also made a point of avoiding the pretty secretary by the doors that worked the night shift. He recalled her name being Molly. She always smiled and spoke an octave higher than her actual voice was. Will almost flirted with her once but concluded that drowning in his own urine would be more preferable than engaging in asinine conversation. 

Will stepped into the cold night air beyond the FBI doors and ducked his head deeper into the neck of his coat. He pulled the collar up and held it closed with his hand as he rushed to his car to avoid getting a chill. He didn’t mind the cold weather during the day, but without the warm relief of sunlight, it made him long for warmer weather.

From work, it was a short drive by car to his favourite drinking hole, a bar aptly named _The Place._ The bar was not nice enough to be considered upscale but not quite dingy enough to be a dive. It sat happily in the middle. Smoke always hung thick in the air, the clouds tinted red by the low hanging lights under big glass lanterns hanging from the ceiling by thick gold chains. A little kitschy and nostalgic but nice. The tables were all dark oak and spread apart just far enough for people to navigate between them without hips and legs bumping into them. Most of the clientele that frequented _The Place_ were construction workers and office workers, a healthy mix of white and blue collar people all out for the same thing -- a strong drink.

Will pulled into a parking spot when he arrived at The Place and adjusted his rear-view mirror to check his face in it. People always assumed Graham to be someone fresh out of high school because of his uncharacteristically youthful face; thin, clean shaven, boyish. His tendency to shy away from group company didn’t help his cause either. He’d resigned himself to always being the baby of the group. Tonight, however, his thirst for whiskey far outweighed his desire to be home alone.

He hopped out of his car and lowered his head again, pinching his collar up around his neck as he scuttled into the bar. He didn’t lift his head when he entered and focused on his feet as he crossed the room to the bar, nudging into something so hard that he felt the side of his body had collided with a freight train. He looked up, startled and winded, but avoided eye contact with the man he’d nearly bowled over.

“Sorry,” Will grumbled apologetically. 

“Pardon me,” the man responded. 

Will’s eyes darted towards the source of the accented voice. What was an accent like that doing in Baltimore? The man the voice belonged to was standing angled away from Will with an expensive looking coat draped over his arm. He was smoothing out its wrinkles as if he were preparing it to be worn; he looked like he was leaving.

“I should’ve watched where I was going,” Will stammered, angling his head slightly to try and see his face. 

“A wise observation,” the man nodded curtly without turning around.

“At least let me buy you a drink,” Will offered. “I don’t want you to think I’m just some bumbling asshole.”

“Assuming the thought hasn’t already crossed my mind,” he remarked.

Will bristled at the insinuation. “Let me get you a drink, really. I don’t habitually come here and ram into people on my way to the bar. I had a long day.”

“Long days are not exclusive to you.”

Will scowled. 

The man turned and sat back down at the bar. He draped his coat over his lap and Will finally saw his face shadowed under the brim of his hat. His features were vulpine and angular, almost menacing. He turned to Will with a small nod and Will couldn’t help but be taken by the depth of his gaze. His eyes looked like dark rubies with specks of gold that caught and held the dim bar light like flames.

“Right,” Will managed, looking towards the bartender to gesture for his attention.

Will felt unusually flustered under this foreign man’s attention. He could feel his eyes on the side of his face and couldn’t help but look at him again. He wasn’t smiling; he didn’t look particularly friendly. Not wanting his own gaze to linger, Will pried his eyes away from his face down his expensive clothes to a paper rolled under his arm. He didn’t recognize the language the words were written in.

“That doesn’t look like a Baltimore paper.”

“Italian,” the man replied. 

Will didn’t recognize his accent as being Italian. “You’re a long way from Italy.”

“Only geographically.”

“Yes, gentlemen?” The bartender asked, knocking the bar top near their arms. “What can I get you tonight?”

“Whiskey,” Will answered. He looked to his new companion.

Whiskey as well,” he echoed.

The bartender slammed two glasses down on coaster and filled them with the amber liquid. He pushed them towards the two men and headed off to tend to the other patrons sitting at the bar. Will clutched his glass and knocked its contents down in two greedy gulps. Another bartender filled his glass back up again a moment later. Will’s companion took a tentative sip of his own drink.

“This doesn’t look like the kind of place you come to a lot,” Will said. 

“Most observant of you,” he nodded.

Will angled his glass against his mouth just enough to wet his lips to let the taste linger. 

“This doesn’t look like the kind of place you frequent either,” the man observed. 

“I come here all the time,” Will answered.

“Here, specifically,” he touched the bar top.

Will shook his head and gestured vaguely towards the tables. “I’m usually in a booth.”

“Then we should be sitting in a booth.”

The man stood up and walked towards a vacant booth before Will had time to protest. He followed behind him, eyeing the way his tall, slender body moved so gracefully beneath his tailored clothes. Will estimated his loafers must’ve costed more than the entire floor of The Place. What business could he possibly have somewhere like this?

Before he sat, he doffed his hat and hung it meticulously on a small hook on the beam beside the booth. He placed his coat on the second hook below it and gestured for Will to sit first, which he obediently did. His foreign companion sat across from him, his posture pert and erect. 

“What are you really doing here?” Will asked curiously, a little spurred on from his first whiskey, its effects finally soothing the day’s anxieties away.

“Drinking whiskey, although I've certainly been exposed to and rewarded with better.” he answered. 

“Really,” Will pressed. 

“It’s rude to pry,” the man replied.

“It’s rude to deflect.”

He angled his head curiously. 

“Do you have a name?” Will changed the subject. 

“Do not all of us?" He seemed amused.

“Well,” Will raised his eyebrows expectantly.

“Doctor Hannibal Lecter.”

“Doctor,” Will scoffed. His outfit made sense now.

Hannibal canted his head. 

“You’re the first doctor to drink in here, I imagine.”

“Unsurprising."

Will gulped back his whisky yet again, and fingered his empty glass.

"Perhaps you would extend me the same courtesy of an introduction?” 

“Will Graham,” he offered his hand boldly, his lengthy fingers hovering over the centre of the table.

Hannibal took his hand and shook it firmly, the webs of their thumbs pressing together almost painfully. The strength of Hannibal’s handshake surprised Will and almost sobered him up. He withdrew his hand and stuck it between his thighs under the table. 

The first bars of _Please Mr. Postman_ filled the silence between them. Hannibal sipped his whiskey before gesturing a waiter over to refill Will’s glass. Something in the way Hannibal spoke sent an irritating pinch through Will’s spinal column. He wondered if Hannibal was patronizing him deliberately or accidentally. He didn’t want to spend his night existing as a wealthy doctor’s plaything of amusement. Will’s eyes followed the waiter to the bar. He looked at a sprawling poster of Marilyn Monroe from her infamous Seven Year Itch scene done up in color that he’d never noticed before. Her long legs begged to be looked at. Hannibal followed Will’s eyes to the poster. 

“Have you seen the film?”

“I don’t watch many movies,” Will shook his head. The theater was often crowded and made Will feel intensely claustrophobic. Only the rarest of occasions brought him there.

“I asked about that film specifically.”

Will looked at Hannibal. “I’ve seen it.”

“Marilyn Monroe is a beautiful woman.”

Hannibal fixated on Will’s eyes. They didn’t change when he nodded his agreement with Hannibal’s statement on the blonde actress. A small smile chased across Hannibal’s lips. A waiter placed down a fresh whiskey for Will. Hannibal thanked him politely. 

“Are you trying to see me drunk?” Will asked.

Hannibal shook his head. 

“It’s a weeknight.” Will reminded him.

“You seem capable of holding your liquor.”

“You’re lucky I am,” Will almost smiled. 

“Do you have a title, Mr. Graham?”

“Please,” Will held a hand up. “Call me Will.”

Hannibal smiled. He held Will’s name on his tongue like a sacred hymn before he spoke it. “Will.”

“Special Agent Will Graham.”

“Special Agent?”

Will recognized the lilt of Hannibal’s accent finally. Baltic, he thought. Eastern European. 

“What kind of agent, Will?”

“FBI Agent.”

“You seem young for such a heavy title.” 

“I’m 25,” Will spat defensively. “You don’t seem much older than I do.”

“I’m nearly five years your senior,” he responded cooly. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a thin cigar. He held it between two fingers. “Do you mind if I smoke?”

“Please,” Will shook his head.

Hannibal lit the cigar with the precision of a surgeon and Will wondered if that’s what kind of doctor he was. He watched the tip of the cigar glow orange sporadically before the light caught. Hannibal exhaled two columns of smoke from his nostrils and looked across the table at Will.

“Do you smoke?”

“Not cigars.”

Hannibal lifted his hand. A waiter approached immediately. “Yes?”

“Would you be so kind as to bring over a pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes, please?” 

“With or without matches.”

“Without,” Hannibal placed down a small packet of wooden matchsticks on the table beside his glass. 

The waiter nodded and darted off. Hannibal smiled over at Will.

“I’m starting to think you’re the one that nearly knocked me over earlier with this generosity.”

“It’s common courtesy.” 

“Generosity,” Will insisted. 

Hannibal conceded with a nod.

The waiter approached with his cigarettes and put them down in front of Will, who tore the pack open and took one out immediately. He held it between his front teeth and leaned over the table expecting Hannibal to strike a match for him. Instead, bracing himself on the edge of the table with his strong hands, he leaned in and lit the tip of Will’s cigarette with the end of his cigar. Will could taste Hannibal’s cigar on his tongue. Heat rose to the back of his neck. 

Hannibal sat back and admired Will smoking for a moment. “You don’t dress like an FBI Agent, Will."

“What am I supposed to dress like?”

“In something that doesn’t seem borrowed.”

Will looked down at his flimsy gray suit. “It looks borrowed because it is. It used to be my father’s suit.”

“I imagine the FBI compensates its agents enough to purchase their own clothing.”

Will floundered against the remark. “I make a comfortable living. I just...haven’t had the time.”

“What fills your hours,” Hannibal paused deliberately. “Special Agent Graham?”

“Work does,” he said, hot under the collar hearing Hannibal’s tone. He leaned forward courageously. “Were you fond of crushing ants in your childhood, Dr. Lecter? Using the little magnifying glasses in science kits?”

Hannibal almost smiled and Will felt the fear of God rise in his chest at the expression he just witnessed on the older man’s face. Will shifted in his seat as he sucked in a deep drag of his cigarette before dumping his glass back in his mouth. He blew the smoke out of the corner of his mouth.

“I was not fond of causing harm to anything that didn’t deserve it,” Hannibal responded, satisfied to see Will react appropriately to him. He sipped his whiskey, its cheapness amplified now with the expensive flavour of his cigar still thick on his tongue. 

Will didn’t press about Hannibal’s childhood; something in the way his face changed when he brought it up told Will that ground was not safe to walk across. Not yet, at least, as two strangers smoking and drinking together. He wondered how much they had in common with each other, if anything at all. It seemed now the only thing they shared was the fact that they were sitting in the same bar drinking the same whiskey, whiskey that Hannibal probably didn’t even like.

“Something has your attention right now, Will, and it’s not me,” Hannibal spoke up. 

“Why do you deserve all my attention?”

“Why not?”

Will stubbed his cigarette out. “You have my attention, Hannibal.”

“Are you certain, Will?

He nodded. 

“We have more in common than you can see,” Hannibal said as he finished his whisky. 

His upper lip curled into a snarl as he swallowed and Will saw his teeth in all their glory for the briefest of seconds. His heart thrummed against his ribs suddenly. He shifted again in his seat and Hannibal angled his head slightly back. He could smell the way Will’s blood quickened in his veins.

“You may find in me an unlikely companion, Will,” Hannibal said directly. 

Will looked straight at Hannibal. His ruby eyes looked dark as ever now, almost crimson. Hypnotizing. 

“Companion for what, exactly?” Will asked.

“That remains to be seen,” Hannibal answered, lifting his glass to his lips. 

He lowered it enough to expose his full mouth to smile properly, the first real sign of genuine amusement from Hannibal all night, and let the expression linger especially to be admired by his new companion. Will thought he looked like a wolf baring its teeth and his heart fluttered helplessly. 

“Angling yourself as the detective now, Dr. Lecter?” Will retorted bravely, looking away from him to gesture for another glass of whiskey for himself in place of saying something remiss. 

'When a man presents himself be such an intriguing complexity, one can not help but pry." Hannibal noted Will's hint. Waving the tender down for yet another refuel.

**Author's Note:**

> First fic I've ever written with the oh so awesome edwardmeechum :D. A few things to note:
> 
> This takes place in the 1940's and the 1960's-1980's. Political Incorrectness will be abound.
> 
> Some parts are historically accurate, others are not.
> 
> Major canon divergence. While the beginning is about on par with most Hannibal back stories it pretty much ventures off after that.
> 
> More characters, tags, etc to be added as the story progresses.


End file.
